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Virgin Australia to cut capacity by 25% as Covid-19 cases rise

Virgin Australia said on Monday it would reduce capacity across its network by around 25 per cent for the rest of January and for February due to reduced travel demand and staff being required to isolate as Covid-19 case numbers rise in Australia. The airline, which competes against Qantas Airways Ltd , said that it would cut some flight frequencies and suspend 10 routes temporarily. Australia, on Monday, surpassed 1 million Covid-19 cases, with more than half of them recorded in the past week, as the Omicron variant ripped through most of the country driving up hospitalisation numbers and putting a strain on supply chains. Virgin Australia's Chief Executive, Jayne Hrdlicka. said that the surge in Covid-19 cases had affected customer confidence. "Virgin Australia remains focused on growing its network and consumer reach and will resume services as soon travel demand improves," she said in a statement. The airline said in November it would add seven more Boeing Co 737 NG planes to its fleet, nearly restoring it to pre-pandemic levels, to help meet a goal of obtaining a one-third share of Australia's domestic travel market.

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New gate of Dudhwa tiger reserve opens

A new entry gate of Dudhwa tiger reserve was dedicated to people by Dara Singh Chauhan, forest minister of the state, on Thursday in an online event. It is a step towards the promotion and branding of the reserve. The newly constructed entry gate on the Indo-Nepal route will attract eco-tourists coming from the Nepal side to the reserve besides helping in branding of the place, said the minister. It is under the state government’s ecotourism policy that the forest department and the forest corporation are working along with the state tourism department to develop and promote ecotourism sites in the state. Dudhwa-Katarniaghat-Kishenpur circuit is one of the nine ecotourism circuits that has been identified for further development and promotion. Though the circuit gets a lot of tourists during the season, the state government has planned for the branding and promotion of Dudhwa reserve, which is home to tigers, rhinos, leopards, swamp deer, elephants and thousands of birds. The state has three tiger reserves, out of which Dudhwa and Pilibhit are developed and development of Amangarh in Bijnor district has already been taken up by the state government. The Dudhwa tiger conservation foundation, which was set up in 2018 for conservation of tigers and biodiversity of Dudhwa, will organise roadshows in the major cities of the state to create a special image of the reserve. Besides, several entry gates have been made and infrastructure facilities created inside the reserve to facilitate tourists.

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Indian Railways to upgrade accident enquiry process, to introduce tools developed by Japan

The Railways has decided to upgrade its accident enquiry process by introducing industry-standard cause and effect analysis techniques like Ishikawa (Fishbone) diagrams and other such tools developed by Japan. An order issued Wednesday by the Railway Board said the Fishbone technique and other tools like the 5-why analysis would lead to better determination of the root-cause and, thereby, minimising the chances of recurrence. Both these techniques have been developed by Japan and are widely used in different sectors to systematically looking at effects and the causes and fins a solution to a problem. "The accident enquiry committees should, invariably, carry out Fishbone analysis in all cases of consequential accidents as a part of the Accident Enquiry process for identification of the root-cause and recommend corrective measures based on the same. "Further, in case of SPADS (Signal Passing at Danger), 5-Whys (Why-Why) root-cause analysis may be carried out to improve the incisiveness of the accident investigation. The accident enquiry report approving authority may please be directed to ensure that root-cause analysis techniques as mentioned above are used in respective cases without fail," the order stated. It also said that the introduction of these techniques may require training of officers and personnel involved which has to be organised by the railway zones at their end. The Railway Board also said that short courses are being organised by the Director General of the National Academy of Indian Railways (NAIR). These instructions on upgrading the accident enquiry process will become effective from February 1, the order stated. Enquiries into railway accidents are conducted by the Commissioner of Railway Security which comes under the Ministry of Aviation to make it impartial.

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Railways to levy fee for boarding, alighting at redeveloped stations; suburban train passengers exempted

Long-distance train travel is likely to cost more for passengers boarding or alighting at redeveloped stations as the Railways is planning to levy a station development fee ranging from INR 10 to INR 50 depending on the class of travel. Officials said the fee is likely to be added to the train tickets during booking. The fee will be levied only after such stations become operational. The user fee would be in three categories. INR 50 for all AC classes, INR 25 for sleeper class and INR 10 for the unreserved class. No station development fee will be charged for suburban train journeys, according to a circular issued by the Railway Board. It stated that platform tickets at these stations will also be costlier by INR 10. "Station Development Fee (SDF) shall be collected from the passengers (boarding as well as alighting at such stations)." "Class-wise SDF for developed/redeveloped stations shall be charged as under: For alighting passengers at such stations, the SDF shall be 50 per cent of the rates indicated above. If both boarding/alighting such stations, in that case, SDF shall be 1.5 times of the applicable rate," the circular stated. SDF shall be uniform across all such stations and shall be charged as a separate component plus applicable GST, for which instructions shall be issued separately, it added. Officials said that the levying of SDF will ensure a continuous revenue stream for the Railways and will make the model financially viable for the national transporter to lure private players. Various stations are being redeveloped on Indian Railways to provide modern amenities. Rani Kamalapati station of West Central Railway and Gandhinagar Capital station of Western Railway have been developed and commissioned.

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Ships from Assam, North East to be connected to Bengal's Haldia via Bangladesh, says Sonowal

Work has begun for national waterways along the Brahmaputra and Barak rivers and cargo and passenger ships from Assam and the Northeast will be connected to Haldia in West Bengal via Bangladesh, Union Minister Sarbananda Sonowal said on Saturday. Speaking at the 'Brahmaputra River Conclave' at the ongoing Northeast Festival here, he said that transformation through transportation is the idea behind the revamping of national waterways as means of communication. "Work has already begun to pave way for national waterways (Brahmaputra and Barak) to facilitate movement of cargo ships. Cargo and passenger ships from Assam and the Northeast will be connected to Haldia via Bangladesh. The work of dredging has already begun," the Union ports, shipping and waterways minister said. He added that coastal and maritime shipping will get a boost with opening up of the northeastern markets. Sonowal also said that "we must not limit ourselves to the Brahmaputra. We must go beyond and develop waterways through other rivers like Aie, Dhansiri, Manas etc." He spoke about Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision to develop the Northeastern region. "All the eight states must come together and work towards the region's development," he urged. Director of Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) A Selvakumar made a presentation on measures taken for revamping river networks in the northeast. Rituparna Baruah, Director of Assam Tourism Development Corporation Ltd, and Lakshya Konwar, vice president of Sports Authority of Assam and general secretary of Assam Olympic Association, were also present at the conclave. The three-day Northeast festival was inaugurated by Assam Governor Jagdish Mukhi on Friday. It is being held at Radisson Blu here with necessary Covid protocols and only double-vaccinated people are being allowed.

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Kolkata airport user fee set to increase 3-fold in 3 years

Flying out of Kolkata airport could soon get more expensive. The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has proposed hiking aeronautical tariff of the airport till March 31, 2026. The user development fee (UDF) could in a graded manner rise from current INR 583 and INR 1,402 per domestic and international passenger respectively to INR 1,895 and INR 4,560 by April 2025. AAI has submitted the proposal to the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority of India (AERA), which will take a call after taking stakeholdeINR' comments. Aviation has been among the industries hit the hardest by Covid with all playeINR like airlines, airport operatoINR, ground service provideINR and flight kitchens struggling to survive due to a sharp fall in traffic. But since almost all big Indian airports faced congestion issues in pre-Covid times and the need to augment their capacity, AERA has been striking a balance between the conflicting demand of airport operatoINR to raise tariffs amid airlines' cash woes. Same will be the case with Kolkata's Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport (NCSBIA), which could see domestic traffic return to pre-Covid levels by March 2024 while international revival could take longer. "AAI expects the capacity of (Kolkata) terminal building will get saturated by FY 2024-25. As a result, AAI proposes to undertake capex worth INR 123 crore (of which the aeronautical component is INR 116 crore) to increase capacity of the existing terminal building by undertaking (several measures)," AERA says in its consultation paper for NCSBIA tariff. The steps include AAI's proposal to increase departure security hold capacity; construction international immigration and security check along with security hold area and build a new security hold area with four bus boarding gates. Accordingly, AERA paper says AAI proposes to raise aeronautical tariffs by hiking landing, parking (for aircraft), aerobridge charges and UDF. While UDF is borne directly by flyeINR, a rise in other charges will be for airlines, who, in turn, will pass it on in the form of higher airfares. "Domestic UDF at INR 735 per embarking passenger (existing rate INR 583) and international UDF at INR 1,766 per embarking passenger (INR 1,401) with effect from October 1, 2021, an increase of 26% on April 1, 2023, and thereafter an increase of 27% on April 1 of every fiscal up to FY 2025-26 is proposed," it says.

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